Michael Crabtree
Like Mahomes, Michael Crabtree was a top-10 pick in the NFL Draft. And though he never made the type of rise to superstardom that Mahomes has, the wide receiver became independently wealthy over the course of his 11-year career.
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With total career earnings of $64,638,581, the Dallas native did quite well for himself. That’s more than Welker made despite the fact that Crabtree’s career never took off the way Welker’s did.
The reason that Crabtree made more than Welker is that he started out making $2,393,077 in his first season and over his first three years, he banked north of $17 million while in Welker’s first three years, he was under a million dollars total.
Twice in his career, Crabtree was paid over $10 million. The first was in his second season when the San Francisco 49ers gave him $12,795,000. The second came in 2016 when the Oakland Raiders paid him $11 million in his second year with that franchise.
Only twice in his career (his rookie year of 2009 and his final year of 2019) did he earn below $3 million. So though Crabtree might not have been as dominant at the NFL level as he was in the college game, he certainly made enough money to be set for a few lifetimes.
We aren’t likely to see another Red Raider to ever break the bank the way Pat Mahomes did. But hopefully, the influx of talent from Texas Tech to the NFL will increase in the near future and we will see more Red Raiders sign massive deals to play on Sundays. When that happens, we will know that the program is back to being as healthy as it was when Welker, Amendola, and Crabtree were wearing the Double T.